VOL. LXXXIV 
MARCH, 1915 
Three Polars and a Cree 
The Cree Had the Worst of it at the Start—Story of a Remarkable Hunt in the Hudson Bay Country 
By R. J. Fraser 
S Samuel’s mixture of English 
and Cree is intelligible only to 
one who has lived with him for 
a time I shall have to tell his 
story for him. Samuel Miles 
is the name he is known by, 
though he is a full-blooded 
Swampy Cree. A strange com¬ 
bination, you think? Maybe, but one hears and 
sees many strange things in the old North where 
truth is often far more incredible than fiction. 
Sam has a native name—Wapeestan—which is 
the Cree for ‘‘The Marten,” and like that ani¬ 
mal he is a true runner of the wilds. He is one 
of the nerviest guides and hunters with whom 
it has been my good fortune to have lived. 
Samuel Miles has the unique record of having 
shot more polar bears on the Hudson Bay Coast 
between the Nelson and the Churchill than any 
other hunter in that section. During the past 
twentynfive years he has accounted for sixty of 
these animals, an average of two and a half 
bears a year—if one can be said to have killed 
half a bear. Some of those which Sam only 
half-killed made very ugly customers. It is of 
some of his adventures with these polars that 
he would have me write. 
One fall I had attempted to strike a trade 
with him offering him a gun for some furs to 
which I had taken a fancy. He was going off to 
hunt caribou for me and asked to be allowed to 
take the rifle along and try it out. If satisfied 
with its shooting he would gladly pay my price. 
It would have been a good gun had it shot 
Big Game Hunter at Hudson Bay. 
straight, but' it didn’t. No matter how one ad¬ 
justed the sights it always fired a foot high at 
a hundred yards. With the loan of the rifle I 
gave Sam a whole box of ammunition and told 
him to give the gun a fair trial. 
In five days he was back. He brought a small 
deer and a polar bear skin, all the game he had 
seen—but his ammunition pouch was empty. 
He had gotten the deer when three days out—- 
six shots at very close range. Returning south 
down the coast he espied the polar out on the 
mud flats grubbing for food. At the first crack 
of the rifle the bear, instead of making for the 
water, bolted for the woods. Like a scared 
rabbit he galloped past within fifty yards of the 
Indian who for a moment thought himself about 
to be attacked. Even at that short range the 
soft-nose slugs flew harmlessly over the animal’s 
back and he got inside the tree line. 
“Gun dam bad!” exclaimed Samuel in disgust. 
He dropped his load on the beach and took up 
the chase. The Indian was no slouch on his 
feet and the polar never got out of sight or 
range, and Sam, stopping occasionally to blaze 
away, plunged through the soft muskegs on the 
white bear’s trail. At each miss he grew more 
disgusted with the gun but more determined than 
ever to get the bear. He stopped and threw 
away his coat for running in the woods was 
warm work. Then he threw away his vest and 
sweater, and each time that he halted to refill 
the magazine he cursed the gun anew. 
When the barrel of the rifle had become too 
hot for comfort he ceased firing and grimly 
settled down to run the bear to earth. He did 
it, too, and not until the beast turned and faced 
him did he fire again. Then within three yards 
of his quarry the Indian pumped as many shots 
through its head and ended the long, hot chase. 
‘'One bear—thirty-seven shots,” said Samuel, 
f? 
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